Greenfield approves employee health insurances, votes down recycling grant application

The Greenfield Village Council voted to pass a resolution to approve health insurance for village employees for 2012 but failed to pass emergency legislation for a recycling grant application Wednesday evening during a special session. 

Greenfield City Manager Betty Bishop said that the resolution for the employee health insurance, which is through the village's current provider with the Ohio Plan, was passed by council 5-0. 

The insurance is at a 14.5-percent increase. 

"The city's cost for the insurance went from $141,000 to $162,000 a year," Bishop said. "The employees pay 10 percent, so in essence, it was a 13-percent increase for the city and a 1.5-percent increase to the employees. The internal insurance committee has been working on this, and they are meeting with employees and making recommendation that they pick up even more costs than they presently pay. I told council that I would try to bring that back to them on the (Jan.) 17th meeting." 

Bishop praised the efforts of the committee in working toward finding the best insurance plan for the city. 

"The internal insurance committee is very effective," Bishop said. "I never had a committee like that until I went to Greenfield. It's very effective, and those people take their jobs very seriously, and they're all volunteer. They really took control of it and went back to the insurance company and talked to them and negotiated better prices."

Bishop said that she was thankful council passed the measure, as the deadline was Jan. 1. 

Bishop said that she will continue to look at the grant application that council did not pass to see if there are better options for the village or an opportunity for funding later in the year. Bishop said that the grant was through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) "for a solid waste management recycling program." 

The resolution was presented as an emergency, and council voted 3-2 on voting to suspend the three-reading rule. Four votes are needed to suspend the rules, so council did not proceed with the legislation. 

Harvey Everhart was one of the council members who voted against it, and he told The Highland County Press Thursday that there were too many questions regarding the grant, and he felt that he could not endorse the program while there were so many unanswered questions. 

Bishop said that the grant was for approximately $200,000 and was for a feasibility study for the recycling program, as well as funding to implement the program. 

While there were no matching funds for the grant, the approval of council was needed for the village to apply, she said. 

"A lot of times people don't understand why you have to bring emergency legislation," Bishop said. "Sometimes you don't even hear about a grant or program or project until it's too close for it to be submitted. When you see those, and you come across something to better your community, you do your best to try to get it accomplished. Am I upset? No. I wish that I'd had the ability to relay it more effectively. But I want to look at it and make sure there is nothing (in the application or requirements) that would be a detriment to Greenfield. To accomplish things, sometimes you have to take chances." 

Everhart said that as he read the 17 pages of the applications, he felt there were too many vague areas. Since council did not receive the legislation until Dec. 19, he felt that he did not have enough time to investigate it.  

"There were 17 pages to the proposal," Everhart said. "As I read it and read all the things the village was going to have to do, I was really uncomfortable with a lot of it."

Among the requirements was a building that would be constructed for the sorting of the recycling material. There were specific building requirements for the structure, which included that there could be no run-off and that a catch basin would have to be installed. While there was $20,000 set aside within the funding, Everhart said he didn't feel that would be enough for the structure. 

"It also talked about people in nearby cities in South Salem, Leesburg, Bainbridge, Highland and Frankfort and how they rely on Greenfield. I don't know what they rely on Greenfield for. We have nothing to do with them as far as their garbage collections," Everhart said. "And in the proposals it said that Greenfield would be responsible for 'the task of planning and finding sources of funding, preparing the plans for different aspects of institutionalization, socialization, technology and financial, and that all stages of planning be comprehensive and over the whole of the city.' I don't even know what that means."

One area that was of a particular concern, Everhart said, was that the proposal indicated that there was a possibility of going to a one-company trash pickup. Earlier this year, Greenfield had proposed a contract for village-wide trash collection, that would also combine the service with a household's water bill. Several citizens spoke at council and to individual city representatives, saying they did not want their choice for the service to be taken away. A petition with 1,354 signatures to drop the effort was presented to council in August, and the village did not proceed further with the matter. 

"The citizens of Greenfield said already they didn't want that, and there were too many questions. I couldn't do that to the citizens of Greenfield," Everhart said. 

The deadline for the grant application was Dec. 31. Bishop said that Tim Hester, Margaret Mobley and employees with Visibly Green of Greenfield had assisted her on the grant application. She said that she is continuing to work toward answering all the questions council raised and will look to alternatives. 

"I'm going to go through the application again and have other people go through it," Bishop said. "It's something we need to do to enhance and to create business. That's the whole name of the game, to create business. We need to make our water supply better. When we have flood waters, we have trash moving in every direction, and I would like to see that corrected."

The next meeting of council will be Sunday, Jan. 1 when they meet to swear in a new member of council. They will also meet Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. for their regular meeting.